Happy Women’s History Month!!
Guess what that means? It’s also time for my annual Women Composers Bingo!
The National Women’s History Alliance’s theme for 2023 is “Celebrating Women Who Tell Our Stories” – and I can’t think of a better way to do that than with music from the Romantic era, when character pieces, programmatic music, and compositions inspired by themes from art and literature were celebrated in salons and concert halls across the Western world.
This was also a formative era for flute repertoire – Theobald Boehm patented his newly-designed silver flute in the mid-1800s, and commissions and technical methods from the Paris Conservatory set the stage for modern pedagogy and performance practice on the instrument we now know & love.
This year’s bingo board features some of my favorite flute music from the 19th & early 20th centuries, prior to WWI. However, I also wanted to give a broader picture of the types of music written by women from this era. Women’s music is not a genre in itself – and these women composed everything from solo works to chamber music, cantatas, and symphonies. Some of these pieces won prestigious awards from the dominant musical societies of the time, and others are notable for being the first of their kind published by a woman. 🥇
Let’s Play!
This is a great activity for a flute studio or music history class, whether as a part of a group activity or as an individual listening assignment for students.
If you’d prefer just casually listening, I’ve also posted the corresponding playlist on my YouTube channel. 🎧
To join in on the fun, download a PDF copy of the bingo board using the button below. You can access the playlist by scanning the QR code that’s in the “free” space in the middle of the board or by clicking the link at the bottom of this post. From my YouTube page, select the “Romantic Era Women” playlist and hit shuffle – let me know if you get 5 in a row!! 😀
Listen to the Playlist!
To view the full playlist, click the button below. Happy listening!